Later today the Bank of England are set to release their inflation report, their first assessment of the economy since the country went back into recession.

In the last report from the Bank of England, the central bank forecast that GDP growth for the UK would be around 1.2 percent for this year and 2.8 percent for the following year; whilst inflation was predicted to hit its 2 percent target in the final quarter of 2012 and fall as low as 1.5 percent in 2013.

However, ahead of the report which will be unveiled later today, it is widely expected that Sir Mervyn King will cut the Bank of England’s forecast for the UK economic growth to 0.75 percent during 2012, with one economist saying: “The economy hasn't grown for six months, and the headline second quarter GDP data are unlikely to stray much above zero, even if the underlying picture is more robust.”

Along with cutting the forecast for GDP growth, the Bank of England are also expected to stick by their earlier expectations that inflation will fall to its target by the end of the year, despite inflation not falling as expected and the consumer price index rising to 3.5 percent in March.

Despite the figures are expected to paint a gloomy picture for the remaining months of the year, many economists are predicting that the downward revisions for next year will not be much lower than the 2.8 forecast in the last report.